Awesome Visuals and Thin Plot/Characters; Fun Popcorn Cinema

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2014)

With all of the sequels, prequels, and remakes that flooded movie theaters in the summer of 2013, you would think audiences would be hungry for something original. Guillermo Del Toro, a modern cinematic visionary, does just that and creates an homage to Japanese giant monster films with PACIFIC RIM and the nation responds with a near universal shrug of disinterest and barely half of it's budget in box office returns. Thankfully, the movie found some massive love overseas and made a nice profit so as to not discourage Del Toro from any future endeavors (or any studios from hiring him again). While my daughter has become a fan of the early Godzilla films, I was never a fan of the Japanese kaiju genre and the closest I ever came was watching the Power Rangers as a child. But I know a good time when I see one and I knew a modern movie about giant robots battling giant monsters from the man who did BLADE II and the HELLBOY movies was worth checking out. The premise is simple enough: giant monsters dubbed Kaiju begin emerging from an interdimensional fissure on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. In an effort to combat these beasts, the human race has united in a program of constructing giant robots known as Jaegers, mentally controlled by two pilots. The movie is set more than a decade into the Kaiju war and we're on the losing end as the Kaiju attacks become more and more persistent. The Jaeger program is being shut down to reallocate the funds into creating giant coastal walls, but Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), the man in charge of the Jaeger program, isn't ready give in. He recruits Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), a former Jaeger pilot with a tragic past, for one last mission in hopes of ending the war once and for all.
I know there's a load of people out there shouting about how this movie isn't original and it ripped it this anime and that anime, and I don't care. I don't watch anime. I'm know Del Toro was heavily inspired by anime (he's a huge fan) and I'm more than happy to just revel in the love letter he's written to these Japanese genres in the form of PACIFIC RIM. It's not a great movie, but it's a pretty good one regardless. It's fun, visually gorgeous, and it's got some fantastic battle sequences, even if its story and characters are all pretty basic and shallow. This movie is eye candy, but it's epic level eye candy. The visual effects are spectacular and the movie's focal points, the Kaiju and Jaegers, are fantastically designed. Each of the robots and creatures has a unique design to stand out from the others though I only wish we'd had an opportunity to see them battle in broad daylight where we could truly appreciate all of the detail that went into them. Every battle happens at night, in rainstorms, etc. It's a missed opportunity and the closest we get is a nice series of shots of a Kaiju rampaging in Sydney, Australia. The entire movie is filled with vibrant colors and it's all beautifully shot. The film was shot by cinematographer Guillermo Navarro and, if you're familiar with any of his previous work, you know to expect good things. PACIFIC RIM is, if nothing else, a visual feast with some brutal robot-on-monster battle action.
The rest of the film's elements are where it stumbles a bit. The cast is filled with an eclectic mix of talent. You've got Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi are the film's heroes who suffer from a lack of decent chemistry. As the pilots of our hero Jaeger, Gypsy Danger, they're our main focus. They've got a bit of depth to them with a little backstory behind them to explain why Raleigh (Hunnam) wants to avoid the Jaeger program and Mako (Kikuchi) wants so desperately to be a part of it. Unfortunately, I never felt much of a real spark between them. Idris Elba is the grizzled commander in charge of the Jaeger initiative. Elba is a talented man and provides one of the stronger performances as he riles up a passion in the men under his command to fight. We get comic relief in the form of the Jaeger program's science team, Newt (Charlie Day) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), and Del Toro regular Ron Perlman has a sweet supporting role as a black market peddler of Kaiju remains. None of the characters are mind-blowingly developed but there's enough behind each of them to give them some motivation. The plot is paper thin: beat the monsters and destroy the source. There wasn't much effort put into plot elements, as this movie is all about the action. This means the section in the middle of the film while Raleigh and the rest of the Jaeger program ready for their final mission tends to drag. It's all about character development at that point and the characters were totally outshined by the robots/monsters so that's what we're aching to see by that point. Once the action kicks into gear in Hong Kong, it's all up hill from there.
PACIFIC RIM is spectacle cinema and it's a blast to watch, especially on the big screen. It's not an overly intelligent film and you're probably best off shutting down your mind, munching on some popcorn, and taking in the killer visuals. It's a fun experience I'm happy Del Toro got his love letter to Japanese giant monsters out of his system because he's still got a dozen other projects on his agenda that I'm excited about.